At The Heart Of The Matter
IBM
IBM tops CBR's BI rankings courtesy of a robust
BI infrastructure platform supported by an even-stronger core
competency in its designing, building and managing of complete BI
solutions. Even though IBM might not 'own' that much of the BI
technology stack, its influence on the market is unmistakable.
Almost every tools and application vendor wants to engage
with IBM to tap into the global reach of its pre-eminent Global
Services division that does the heavy integration graft and wraps BI
technology around a business context. The growing popularity of
IBM's DB2 and WebSphere platforms act as lynchpins for the ongoing
development of vertical industry BI and performance management
solutions.
IBM also continues to dip into its vast resources
to put out new technologies and drive innovative analytic
capabilities into the DB2 engine. As a trusted IT supplier to many
satisfied Global 2000's, IBM will remain a first port of call for
large, complex BI implementations. For this reason IBM deservedly
makes it to number one.
Teradata
NCR subsidiary
Teradata continues to rule the roost in the multi-terabyte data
warehousing market. Its software already commands most of the
world's largest warehouses with built-in intelligence. New
initiatives around real-time, event-driven warehousing, in-database
mining and RFID will keep the company at the forefront of extreme
warehousing for the foreseeable future.
Quite simply,
Teradata is the clear market leader when it comes to vertical
warehouses with intelligence built-in. Opening itself up to broader
alliances - recently SAP and Siebel - will strengthen the company's
position as the de facto choice for high-data volume
analytics.
SAS Institute
In 2003 SAS augmented
its solid analytic platform with strategic acquisitions that
reinforced its vertical approach to linking analytic intelligence to
business process.
Pharmaceuticals, telecommunications,
banking and financial services, and more recently retail (following
the acquisition of Marketmax) are the mainstay sectors for the SAS
brand of intelligence. Expect SAS to fine-tune its packaged solution
offerings in these, and other application areas in 2004.
The
company is also pumping considerable effort and resources to further
develop its new BI platform capabilities, which will draw in a much
wider set of business users than in the
past.
Microsoft
Microsoft's BI strategy is like
a storm; people hear the thunder and run for cover before the
lightning strikes. Microsoft's presence in the BI market has grown
to the extent that it must now be considered a feasible BI player
and a serious competitor in the market.
The release of its
SQL Server Reporting Services earlier this year bolsters a maturing
set of BI components covering OLAP, data integration, data mining
and now enterprise reporting. Microsoft also owns Excel, arguably
the world's most widely used BI tool, which it is surrounding with
visualisation and dashboarding capabilities.
It provides BI
and analytics as .NET services by linking its BI tools to its Visual
Studio.NET development environment that is increasingly used to
build custom BI implementations in a services-based architecture.
It is only a matter of time before the brighter sparks at
Redmond realise how strong a hand the company holds in BI rather
than ceding parts of the market it does not want to play in to
competitors.
Cognos
Cognos has made a habit of
returning strong quarterly results. Even though it lost top revenue
spot to the Business Objects/Crystal Decisions combo, Cognos is
nevertheless steaming ahead with confidence in its two core markets:
enterprise BI and corporate performance management.
Cognos
has widened its reach even further following the launch of its
ReportNet enterprise reporting platform at the end of last year,
which nicely rounds out its Series 7 BI suite. Having assembled all
the component pieces, Cognos' focus must now be to deliver tight
metadata integration across the suite; something the company has
been attacked over.
As companies look to standardise on a
single vendor platform for performance management, business
analytics, and reporting, Cognos will be on most shortlists. The
appointment of Cognos veteran Rob Ashe to CEO will ensure a smooth
transition; sources say he has effectively been pulling the
company's strings for the past couple of years
anyway.
Business Objects
With Crystal
Decisions' market-leading reporting technology, customer-base and
blockbuster partnerships on board, Business Objects suddenly finds
itself a revenue leader in terms of pure BI. This merger of two
equals added substantial credibility to BI as a distinct and
important software category.
But a big question still
remains about the integration of the two platforms. Putting out an
integration roadmap on paper is one thing. Executing on it
effectively is another.
As customers increasingly favour
large, consolidated end-to-end BI suites Business Objects has plenty
to offer. Admittedly it took some time for Business Objects to
realise that the potential goldmine of existing and SAP customers
being drawn by its Acta data integration platform and it is once
again aggressively seeking market share in this space.
But the
company still needs to articulate a more convincing performance
management strategy, which is why it is pipped by Cognos this
year.
MicroStrategy
Fallen BI star
MicroStrategy is on the rebound, threatening to scale the dizzy
heights it once reached in the market. Having rediscovered
profitability through a 'back to basics' focus on its core BI
strengths, MicroStrategy has turned things around nicely.
The MicroStrategy platform has always been well regarded,
and equates with scalable and complex analysis of large datasets;
something that is in tune with current market needs.
Throughout 2003 MicroStrategy had been busy racking up new
deals with high-profile organisations on the back of its
architecturally well-integrated 7i platform.
Last year the
company also launched into the web-based production reporting
market, a radical departure from its traditional power-user focus.
If MicroStrategy can keep the accounting gremlins at bay it will
keep growing.
Hyperion Solutions
A near perfect
storm of business and technology factors is playing into Hyperion's
business performance management strategy (BPM). CFOs are now turning
to Hyperion's financial prowess to alleviate the worry of compliance
and other corporate governance imperatives.
Hyperion's early
stake in BPM should hold the company in good stead when pilot BPM
implementations evolve into full-blown corporate initiatives.
Not content with monopolising this market, Hyperion is also
bolstering its BI Platform capabilities by absorbing Brio Software's
query, analysis and reporting tools. This will help to extend BPM's
impact beyond the realm of finance and into mainstream business
operations. Hyperion is also spearheading the development of new
integration standards around BI, such as JOLAP and
XMLA.
Fair Isaac
While not strictly a BI vendor
in the traditional mould, Fair Isaac merits inclusion in our top 10
due to its unique blend of analytics and business rules management.
Best known for its credit scoring prowess, the company grew
at an astonishing rate of knots last year to firmly position it as a
dominant force in enterprise decision management - a novel concept
that pushes real-time decision making down to the operational
coal-face of the organisation.
While many questioned Fair
Isaac's motives for buying HNC Software's predictive technology,
it's now enabling the company to move into new, emerging markets
such as business activity monitoring.
Netezza
Propping up our top 10 is Netezza, a
rapidly emerging upstart that is breaking the mould of traditional
batch-driven data warehousing and introducing speedier ways of
delivering BI. The company recently enhanced the capacity and
performance of its fast Netezza Performance Server product.
Netezza is set to gain considerable market traction with an
architecturally appealing entry into the marketplace, and already
has a number of industry partners signed up including Micro-Strategy
and SPSS.
With its low-cost and open-source (Linux)
strategy, Netezza could start to challenge the dominance of
established incumbents such as Teradata in the multi-terabyte
warehousing space.
The Challengers
Noteworthy
BI vendors that just missed out on our top 10 include Information
Builders, one of the oldest companies in BI, that has mastered the
art of building scalable enterprise information delivery systems.
Its iWay subsidiary also means it is one of the few vendors to offer
homegrown technology for both BI and integration.
Actuate's
integration of enterprise information integration vendor Nimble
Technologies into its enterprise reporting platform tightens up
integration with a broader set of XML-enabled applications. Other BI
vendors are sure to follow.
Applix has gained a
technological lead in the area of spreadsheet-based analysis. Its
lightning fast analytic platform does a sterling job of embracing
the ubiquity of Excel without compromising on data consistency and
centralised control.
Privately-held ProClarity continues on
its remarkable growth curve in 2004, striking a nice balance between
BI customisation and rapid deployment.
Acknowledgement
should also go to Siebel Analytics for succeeding where other CRM
vendors have failed. Initially designed to be pointed at its own CRM
suite, Siebel's Analytic Platform 7.7 now has much greater designs
in enterprise BI. Analytics is now one of Siebel's fastest growing
business lines.
SEE TABLE OF CBR 10 MOST INFLUENTIAL: BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE
